The Return of Sneaky Town
New tiles, new rulebook, new energy, etc.
Hi readers and Sneaky Town fans! It’s 2025 and Sneaky Town development has resumed at pace. Here’s what’s new:
1. Tile Designs
The tiles have long been the laggards of Sneaky Town’s visual design. No longer! Gone are the days of “+2” and “+G” and “🛑” and so on - welcome, charms and voids:
I followed these design principles:
Rotational symmetry: no need to turn them right-side up!
A classic feel: as with the rest of the game, I want these to be plausibly hundreds of years old - hence, simple and organic designs.
Concrete symbolism: each of the charms represents a concrete thing that can be referred to (suns and flowers)
2. Adjustments to Rules
Early play-testers may be interested in the latest rule adjustments, which simplify the game and enhance its strategic depth:
Roam free: there is no longer a blocked sight line (🛑) - play anywhere you want!
Be positive: there are no longer intersections with negative point values (interestingness of this feature didn’t justify the complexity)
Share the wealth: all charms (objectives) now confer points to either player upon capture, ensuring competition.
with that said…
3. Brand (Spanking) New Rulebook
I’ve created the most legit rulebook in Sneaky Town history, with diagrams for each of setup, actions, and scoring. Read the full thing here:
There is also a brief discussion on strategy, which I may write more about in a later post.
Conceptual Progress
The rulebook forced me to give names to many game concepts. We can now say that in Sneaky Town, players cast (and transfer, and recover) stones to claim intersections in hopes of eventually capturing charms. Players also sometimes sacrifice reserve stones (from their reserve pile) to swap cast stones or to reveal sight tiles, but are careful to not reveal voids (and so on). And speaking of new concepts…
Heralding the Fall of the Sneaky Town Empire
These new designs and concepts have pushed my thoughts in new creative directions… so far, in fact, that the name and theme of the game may soon change 😳. Stay tuned…
…Speaking of which, you can subscribe here to receive Sneaky Town updates in your inbox:
Request: Do You Know Someone Who Produced a Fancy Wooden Thing?
I would like to get Sneaky Town into your hands. In pursuit of that, I am interested to talk to anyone who has produced a fancy wooden thing (especially games) (and yes, rest assured this will be a fancy wooden thing). Introductions welcome, you can contact me by replying to this email.
Request: Do You Know Someone Who Wants to Play-Test in Seattle?
… such as yourself maybe? Let me know! I’m here for a month. You may get to be the very first player to play with the new tiles or new board (yet undiscussed).
…
Finally, thank you for being a Sneaky Town fan. I appreciate everyone who has played Sneaky Town and given me feedback and encouragement through the years. And, thanks for your patience as this project has been on the back-burner. My goal here as with everything is to produce something truly beautiful, and I am now putting in the effort to make that happen. I hope you hang on for the ride and look forward to sharing more updates ❤️.
👁️ 👁️ 👁️ 👁️ 👁️ soon,
Daniel
I'd be happy to test! this looks cool
Love this!